Ontario Pork welcomes the…

Ontario Pork welcomes the opportunity to provide comments on the proposed regulatory amendments to the General Regulation (O. Reg. 267/03 – General) under the Nutrient Management Act to support on-farm regulated mixed anaerobic digestion facilities.

Ontario Pork represents the 1,179 pork producers across Ontario by advocating in the areas of policy, research, and industry and market development. Ontario’s pork sector represents a significant part of the Canadian economy, combining - from “farm to fork” - $876 million in GDP and over 13,186 full time jobs.

We support the proposed regulatory amendments and believe that the amendments would ease the burden for agricultural producers that wish to operate a regulated mixed anaerobic digestion facility.

The proposed amendments will help producers to expedite the process of building a digester, and will include an important option to enable them to upgrade their process to produce renewable natural gas, a product which could be marketed to consumers.

The proposed changes will also allow producers greater flexibility in acquiring the quantity and type of permitted feedstock materials from both on-farm and off-farm sources under the Nutrient Management Act.

These changes are welcome and will assist farmers greatly by providing many more options in acquiring these feedstocks than at present.

The proposed changes will benefit agricultural operations through a more streamlined process that results in reduced time for approvals, will allow sales of farm produced gas, while continuing to provide a source of nutrients and organic matter for use on farm fields.